Water resources: future Nile river flows

Climate change is projected to increase annual Nile river flow; importantly, year-to-year variability is also expected to increase markedly. More variable flows could present a challenge for consistent water resource provision in this region

Intensive expression of Bmi-1 is a new independent predictor of poor outcome in patients with ovarian carcinoma

Background: It has been suggested that the B-cell specific moloney leukemia virus insertion site 1 (Bmi-1) gene plays an oncogenic role in several types of human cancer, but the status of Bmi-1 amplification and expression in ovarian cancer and its clinical/prognostic significance are unclear.Methods: The methods of immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization were utilized to examine protein expression and amplification of Bmi-1 in 30 normal ovaries, 30 ovarian cystadenomas, 40 borderline ovarian tumors and 179 ovarian carcinomas.Results: Intensive expression of Bmi-1 was detected in none of the normal ovaries, 3% cystadenomas, 10% borderline tumors, and 37% ovarian carcinomas, respectively. Amplification of Bmi-1 was detected in 8% of ovarian carcinomas. In ovarian carcinomas, significant positive associations were found between intensive expression of Bmi-1 and the tumors ascending histological grade, later pT/pN/pM and FIGO stages (P < 0.05). In univariate survival analysis of the ovarian carcinoma cohorts, a significant association of intensive expression of Bmi-1 with shortened patient survival (mean 49.3 months versus 100.3 months, p < 0.001) was demonstrated. Importantly, Bmi-1 expression provided significant independent prognostic parameters in multivariate analysis (p = 0.005).Conclusions: These findings provide evidence that intensive expression of Bmi-1 might be important in the acquisition of an invasive and/or aggressive phenotype of ovarian carcinoma, and serve as a independent biomarker for shortened survival time of patients. © 2010 Yang et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.published_or_final_versio

Is X(3872) a bound state?

All existing experimental evidence for the bound state nature of X(3872) relies on observing its decay products, which are measured with a finite experimental mass resolution that is typically deltam>2 MeV , and much larger than its alleged binding energy, Bx = 0.00(18) MeV. On the other hand, we have found recently that there is a clear cancellation in the 1++ channel of the invariant DD* mass around the threshold between continuum and the bound state. This is very much like a similar cancellation in the proton-neutron continuum with the deuteron in the 1++ channel. Based on comparative fits with a common Tsallis distribution of the experimental cross-sections for prompt production of deuterons and X(3872) in pp collisions with a finite Pt , we find a strong argument for questioning the bound state nature of this state, which also suggests that the large observed production rate could be consistent with a half-bound state.This work is partly supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and European FEDER funds (FPA2016-77177-C2-2-P, FIS2017-85053- C2-1-P) and Junta de Andalucía (FQM-225

Bioenergetic-active materials enhance tissue regeneration by modulating cellular metabolic state

Cellular bioenergetics (CBE) plays a critical role in tissue regeneration. Physiologically, an enhanced metabolic state facilitates anabolic biosynthesis and mitosis to accelerate regeneration. However, the development of approaches to reprogram CBE, towards the treatment of substantial tissue injuries, hasbeen limited thus far. Here, we show that induced repair in a rabbit model of weight-bearing bone defects is greatly enhanced using a bioenergetic-active material (BAM) scaffold, compared to commercialized poly (lactic acid) and calcium phosphate ceramic scaffolds. This material was composed of energy-active units that can be released in a sustained degradation-mediated fashion once implanted. By establishing an intramitochondrial metabolic bypass, the internalized energy-active units significantly elevatemitochondria membrane potential (ΔΨm) to supply increased bioenergetic levels and accelerate bone formation. The ready-to-use material developed here represents a highly efficient and easy-to-implement therapeutic approach toward tissue regeneration, withpromise for bench-to-bedside translation

When Anomaly Mediation is UV Sensitive

Despite its successes---such as solving the supersymmetric flavor problem---anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking is untenable because of its prediction of tachyonic sleptons. An appealing solution to this problem was proposed by Pomarol and Rattazzi where a threshold controlled by a light field deflects the anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking trajectory, thus evading tachyonic sleptons. In this paper we examine an alternate class of deflection models where the non-supersymmetric threshold is accompanied by a heavy, instead of light, singlet. The low energy form of this model is the so-called extended anomaly mediation proposed by Nelson and Weiner, but with potential for a much higher deflection threshold. The existence of this high deflection threshold implies that the space of anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking deflecting models is larger than previously thought.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure (version to appear in JHEP

Composite-pulse magnetometry with a solid-state quantum sensor

The sensitivity of quantum magnetometers is challenged by control errors and, especially in the solid-state, by their short coherence times. Refocusing techniques can overcome these limitations and improve the sensitivity to periodic fields, but they come at the cost of reduced bandwidth and cannot be applied to sense static (DC) or aperiodic fields. Here we experimentally demonstrate that continuous driving of the sensor spin by a composite pulse known as rotary-echo (RE) yields a flexible magnetometry scheme, mitigating both driving power imperfections and decoherence. A suitable choice of RE parameters compensates for different scenarios of noise strength and origin. The method can be applied to nanoscale sensing in variable environments or to realize noise spectroscopy. In a room-temperature implementation based on a single electronic spin in diamond, composite-pulse magnetometry provides a tunable trade-off between sensitivities in the microT/sqrt(Hz) range, comparable to those obtained with Ramsey spectroscopy, and coherence times approaching T1

No Interaction of Barrier-to-Autointegration Factor (BAF) with HIV-1 MA, Cone-Rod Homeobox (Crx) or MAN1-C in Absence of DNA

Barrier-to-autointegration factor is a cellular protein that protects retroviral DNA from autointegration. Its cellular role is not well understood, but genetic studies show that it is essential and depletion or knockout results in lethal nuclear defects. In addition to binding DNA, BAF interacts with the LEM domain, a domain shared among a family of lamin-associated polypeptides. BAF has also been reported to interact with several other viral and cellular proteins suggesting that these interactions may be functionally relevant. We find that, contrary to previous reports, BAF does not interact with HIV-1 MA, cone-rod homeobox (Crx) or MAN1-C. The reported interactions can be explained by indirect association through DNA binding and are unlikely to be biologically relevant. A mutation that causes a premature aging syndrome lies on the previously reported MAN1-C binding surface of BAF. The absence of direct binding of BAF to MAN1-C eliminates disruption of this interaction as the cause of the premature aging phenotype

Chordal Editing is Fixed-Parameter Tractable

Graph modification problems typically ask for a small set of operations that transforms a given graph to have a certain property. The most commonly considered operations include vertex deletion, edge deletion, and edge addition; for the same property, one can define significantly different versions by allowing different operations. We study a very general graph modification problem that allows all three types of operations: given a graph and integers k(1), k(2), and k(3), the CHORDAL EDITING problem asks whether G can be transformed into a chordal graph by at most k(1) vertex deletions, k(2) edge deletions, and k(3) edge additions. Clearly, this problem generalizes both CHORDAL DELETION and CHORDAL COMPLETION (also known as MINIMUM FILL-IN). Our main result is an algorithm for CHORDAL EDITING in time 2(O(klog k)). n(O(1)), where k:=k(1) + k(2) + k(3) and n is the number of vertices of G. Therefore, the problem is fixed-parameter tractable parameterized by the total number of allowed operations. Our algorithm is both more efficient and conceptually simpler than the previously known algorithm for the special case CHORDAL DELETION

Beautiful Mirrors at the LHC

We explore the "Beautiful Mirrors" model, which aims to explain the measured value of $A^b_{FB}$, discrepant at the $2.9\sigma$ level. This scenario introduces vector-like quarks which mix with the bottom, subtly affecting its coupling to the $Z$. The spectrum of the new particles consists of two bottom-like quarks and a charge -4/3 quark, all of which have electroweak interactions with the third generation. We explore the phenomenology and discovery reach for these new particles at the LHC, exploring single mirror quark production modes whose rates are proportional to the same mixing parameters which resolve the $A_{FB}^b$ anomaly. We find that for mirror quark masses $\lesssim 500 GeV, a 14 TeV LHC with 300 {\rm fb}^{-1}$ is required to reasonably establish the scenario and extract the relevant mixing parameters.Comment: version to be published in JHE